The W&L Political Review Returns to Campus

The W&L Political Review Returns to Campus
Students restart the Williams School academic journal after a hiatus.

(Promotional poster for the Political Review | SOURCE: The Washington and Lee Political Review)

The Washington and Lee Political Review is returning to campus this spring for the first time since 2021. Sam Cook, ‘27, and Nathan Dewitte, ‘27, told The Spectator they decided to bring back the publication – which ceased activity due to COVID – to fill a gap for an academic journal that “engages the political community on campus.”

Cook, a politics major, told The Spectator that the journal is accepting submissions from students of any major. “We encourage students outside of politics to use their unique perspectives… to analyze any sort of political issue,” he said. DeWitte, also a politics major, added that articles could cover the “political climate, political philosophy, modern-day political culture.”

The team is optimistic about the supply of potential content. “There's a lot of people who are producing really good academic papers,” Cook remarked. He viewed the absence of a journal as a missed “opportunity for students to express their opinions and… beliefs in a more formal, academic setting.” They clarified that the publication’s goal is to explore “long-term” political issues, not current events.

Both stressed that submissions do not need to be for a high-level class or senior thesis project. “If you wrote a really good paper for your paper in your Politics 100 course … we encourage you to submit it,” Cook said. As for the quality of potential submissions, he remarked, “We have our team of editors to help you refine the paper and help it become prepared for publication. No one should feel that any of their work isn’t good enough for review and publication.”

Cook encouraged interested students to email him.

They told The Spectator that a key part of their mission is filling the gap of campus discourse and debate on political topics. Cook added. “We have a unique opportunity to really encourage respectful discourse on campus,” he continued. The team shared plans for “symposiums and speaker panels” to allow the authors of papers to share their perspectives and for students to debate important topics.

Cook and DeWitte recently held an application process to create their editorial board. They received over 30 applications, accepting only six. Cook shared insights into their decision-making  process, saying that they created a group with a “diverse range of political views” in an effort to make The Political Review a “non-biased source … that really allows all opinions and all political affiliations to have their opinions heard.”